by Lina Langley
“College, right?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, sure,” I said, looking away from him. I didn’t know if I could keep lying to him, I didn’t know how long I could keep it up from. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but there was no way to get around it. Maybe he just didn’t need to know, I thought. Maybe I would just be able to get through the year and forget all about Jules Dubois and my stupid birth mother.
Maybe.
But he still had his hand on my shoulder and I could feel his skin through the fabric of my shirt. I turned to look at it, unaware that I was doing it, and he dropped it to his side.
“Sorry,” he said. “Did that get weird?”
“No,” I replied with a smile. “You’re just—I don’t know, why are you so nice to me?”
He furrowed his brow. “What in the world would compel me to be anything but nice to you?”
I swallowed. “Fuck,” I said. “Okay.”
He cocked his head. He was finished with his chips and his lips were covered in little salt crystals. “So are you going to tell me what it is? If it isn’t college,” he said.
I shook my head. “I mean, college is part of it, I guess,” I said. “But it’s not just that. It’s my...”
“Parents?” he offered.
“Foster parents, yeah,” I said. “They seem to believe in me a lot more than they should.”
He blinked. “Foster parents? You’re adopted?”
“No,” I said. “They’re foster parents, not adoptive parents. I just met them a couple of months ago.”
He paled a little, and I felt bad for making him feel sorry for me. “Shit,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “You didn’t make me feel bad or anything.”
He stared at me. “I didn’t?”
“No,” I said. “It’s just the way things are. They’re nice to me. They even decided to send me here, so maybe I would have a chance at even going to college.”
He looked me up and down, but he didn’t say anything.
I took a deep breath. “But they’re wrong,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “They’re so wrong, and I don’t have the heart to tell them.”
I wasn’t looking at him, I was too worried and my eyes were shut. Part of me just didn’t want to see the way he was looking at me. I knew that he was probably feeling sorry for me, and I didn’t want to deal with that.
I didn’t want to deal with seeing him as someone who was looking down on me. Because, on top of having the life I should have been able to have, of course he had to feel sorry for me.
“Hey, man,” he said. “Mason.”
I looked up at him, my eyes filled with tears. I hated it. I hated that I was so vulnerable in front of him, I hated that he was the one who had decided to come and help me out.
The hardest part of it all—the part that really sucked—was that, no matter how hard I was trying, I couldn’t hate him. There was nowhere for my hate to grab onto.
He wasn’t arrogant or annoying. He was kind, and everyone seemed to like him. He was a good listener, but witty and quick, and vulnerable enough not to sound manipulative. If I had thought he was perfect, it might have been harder, but he wasn’t. I’d heard him complain about having to do sports and having to wake up early. He groaned when one of our teachers assigned too much homework and he always seemed to hate public speaking.
There were bags under his eyes, too. I had stared at a million pictures of him, and in those, he always looked happy and healthy. But in real life, he had lost weight, and the skin under his eyes was puffy and darkened. I wanted to ask him if something was on his mind, but I couldn’t. It would’ve been too weird. I would have had to say too much, so I knew that the best thing to do was keep my mouth shut.
I looked up at him.
“Don’t worry,” Jules said. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How do you know that?”
“I didn’t, really, nobody knows everything is going to be okay.”
I laughed. “I don’t think that’s helping.”
He smiled at me. “I don’t know, it looks like it’s helping. You’re laughing,” he said. “You weren’t laughing before.”
“Okay, so other than making me laugh, how is it going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. You know, like I said, I can help you. I am a pretty okay student. Solid B minus everywhere. And if you just need someone to help you catch up, I’m happy to do that.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Jules,” I said. “I’m a hard project to take on.”
“Wait,” he said.
“What?”
He was smiling when I set my gaze on his face. “You didn’t think I liked easy, did you?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
JULES
Everyone was always talking about how much Mason and I looked like each other. Truthfully, I didn’t see it. I had at first, when we had run into each other that very first time, but ever since we had begun spending time together, I had realized just how deep and varied our differences were. Not just physically, though of course there were physical differences. His jaw was a little softer than mine. His cheekbones were a little more marked. His skin was a little less pale. And his eyes, those gorgeous green eyes, they were different than my own. They were beautiful, big and bright, with little gray and amber specks. I could have spent hours just looking into them.
I could have spent hours looking at him, touching him, exploring everything about our bodies that made us different. And that made us the same, too.
The irony of having a crush on someone that looked almost exactly like I did wasn’t lost me. My friends were also quite amused by the entire thing, and they often ended up talking about how I might as well just jack off in front of the mirror. They didn’t understand. They didn’t get just how different Mason was. I did, I saw it every time I looked at him.
At least getting obsessed with him was helping me forget about what was happening at home. It was helping me forget about Hashim too, which was useful, because having a crush on my roommate turned out to be something of a pain in the ass.
It was easier to focus on someone who I didn’t have to be around all the time. At least not until I had walked into that trap all by myself, because I wanted to spend more time with him.
It was going well so far. At least I hadn’t made a fool out of myself. Mason listened to me, took notes, and then he asked me questions about what we had studied later. I liked listening to him. He was smart and he asked me about things I never even thought twice about.
I was thinking about that as I flossed in front of the mirror, ready to meet Mason for another study session. Hashim was sitting on his bed, staring at me.
I looked at him and raised my eyebrows. “Wha?” I managed to mumble through the flossing.
“Nothing,” Hashim said, a smile on his face. He was fidgeting in place as he spoke. “Absolutely nothing.”
I finished flossing, turned the tap on and filled my mouth with water. I spat out, and when I turned the water off, I heard Hashim giggling behind me.
“Dude,” I said. “Can you spit it out?”
He wiggled his eyebrows, so I shook my head. “Stop it,” I said. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Because you’re going to go meet your boyfriend?”
I shook my head again. “He’s not my boyfriend, dude,” I said.
“But you want him to be,” he countered.
I sighed, then looked away from him. I could feel how hot my cheeks were. “I mean, I don’t hate the idea,” I said. “But I don’t know. What are the chances that he’s also into guys?”
Hashim stood up and walked over to where I was. He put his hand on my shoulders and then turned me over so I was looking right into his face. “How are you going to find out if you don’t try?”
I laughed. “Stop,” I said. “Is this your idea of a pep talk?”
“Yes,” he said. “Isn’t it working?”
“No,” I replied. “I mean, it’s working a little, but mostly you’re freaking me out.”
“I’m freaking you out?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re gazing into my eyes like I’m about to run a marathon.”
“You’re about to run a marathon all over that bod,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
I managed to get myself out of his grip. He was still smiling when I spoke. “Listen, I don’t even know if he likes me. Not like that.”
“Right, and the only way to find out, is by asking him. So why don’t you?”
“Are you going to think I’m too much of a pussy if I say that I’m just scared?”
“Oh, Jules,” he said, rolling his eyes and laughing. “I already think you’re too much of a pussy.”
I went to hit him but he moved out of the way. He was laughing when I finally left the room, finally flipping him off as I began to storm down the hallway.
I didn’t want him to be right, but he was. I knew I had to listen to him and there was no getting around it. I was going to have to ask Mason out and I was going to have to deal with the very real possibility of rejection.
That wasn’t a big deal. What was a big deal was if he decided to tell everyone about me, or if he decided he didn’t want to be my friend anymore. I don’t think that’s what would happen, but had to be prepared for it.
I thought about that as I made my way to the library. It was a nice sunny Saturday morning, and maybe we could get out of campus to go to lunch. I had my car there—not that I ever got a chance to use it. We could go off campus during the weekends, but I had stayed behind with Mason any time I could, even when Brandon and Hashim had asked me to drive them places.
They weren’t jealous—or at least, they didn’t seem jealous—but it did make their teasing ramp up. I supposed that was the price of friendship. I smiled as I walked into the library, picking up my head and looking for Mason.
He was always somewhere in the back. We were trying to get through Great Expectations and he’d had to restart it a couple of times. I couldn’t blame him, the prose was hard for me to get through, and he was definitely not an advanced reader.
I couldn’t find him when my gaze scanned over the room. It wasn’t until I caught someone waving from the corner of my eye. It took me a second to recognize Mason out of his uniform, wearing jeans and a dark green shirt. “Hey,” he said.
I smiled at him as I put my finger over my lips. “Shush,” I said as I walked over and sat down next to him. “You’re going to get us kicked out of the library.”
He shook his head, smirking at me. “At least I’m whispering,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I’m trying.”
I had to stifle laughter. “You’re not trying very hard,” I said.
He shook his head. “I know,” he replied. “It’s a problem.”
When he quieted down, I smiled at him. The way his eyes glimmered when he was joking with me made me feel like I was melting inside myself. I needed to do this before I lost my nerve.
I cleared my throat and looked away from him before I spoke. When I did, I noticed that my voice was shaking slightly. “Do you want to go study somewhere else today?”
He looked me up and down. “Where?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “We can go somewhere for food and then go to a Starbucks or something.”
“How are we going to get out of here?”
“I have a car,” I said, then stood up again. “That’s all we need, right?”
He bit his lower lip, looking me up and down again. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s definitely all we need.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MASON
I hadn’t realized that when Jules said we were going to go for a burger, he didn’t mean getting something off the dollar menu. I definitely couldn’t talk him out of it, either, not after he had spent so long finding a parking spot outside the square brick building.
He even went around the car and opened the door for me. I held his hand when he extended it to steady me as I stepped out into the concrete. His grip was firm as I found my footing, and he didn’t let go for what seemed to be a little while too long.
It didn’t take an unreasonably long amount of time, but it did make me wonder what his intentions were. If we were just friends—and we could, hopefully, be friends—then I didn’t have to worry about anything like this.
I shouldn’t worry, because as long as I kept my mouth shut, everything was going to be okay. It might not have been what I had been planning to do when I had first arrived, but I had been wrong about Jules Dubois.
None of what had happened to me was his fault. He was just a victim of circumstance, much like myself. Except that he happened to be the victim of getting a great education and having a car gifted to him when he was fifteen.
I wondered if he’d ever gotten in a fight with anyone. As he guided me into the restaurant, his hand on the small of my back, I thought about his body. I didn’t think I had seen any scars, at least not on his arms, his neck or his face.
I would have to see him with less clothes on if I wanted to prove my own theory to myself. I felt my cheeks redden a little bit at the thought, because I wanted to see him naked.
I wanted to explore what he looked like. Every crevice, every line, everything about him. I wanted to know how similar we were to each other and how different we were from one another. I wanted to compare every scar, every mole, every bruise and broken bone.
Though really, from looking at him, I really doubted he had ever broken any bones.
The hostess got us to sit down in a booth, and when she was gone, Jules reached out and touched my hand. “This will be good for you,” he said.
I looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t spend your entire life in that library,” he replied. “I mean, you can, it’s your life, but I wish you didn’t. You’re starting to lose your tan.”
I smiled, my heart beating fast. I felt like the breath had been sucked out of my body. “You like my tan?”
“Yeah,” he replied, looking away from me and chewing on his bottom lip. “I love your tan.”
I looked down at my hands on my lap. They were trembling, which surprised me. I wasn’t supposed to feel this vulnerable around Jules. I already knew I couldn’t bring myself to feel angry with him since he hadn’t done anything wrong, but I was sure this wasn’t how I was supposed to feel. “It’s hard-earned,” I finally managed to say.
“Yeah,” he replied, his gaze on my skin. His green eyes bore into me and I had to hold on to the table to keep myself from crumbling. I knew that it did nothing, but it felt important and it was helping me maintain eye contact. “I don’t doubt it. Yard work?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said, surprised at how easily he seemed to have guessed that.
He nodded. “Some kids have to do all the yard work when they go home from school for summer,” he said. “Sometimes, they come back about three shades darker than when they left.”
I smiled. “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, it’s hot down here, but we don’t really spend that much time in the sun, do we?”
“No,” he replied, thumbing at the menu. “In fact, if you ask me, that’s why the tuition is so unreasonably expensive. They have to keep the AC running twenty-four seven and that’s what eats up their money.”
I shook my head and looked down at the menu. All of these burgers were upwards of ten dollars each, and some were closer to twenty. The idea of having a twenty-dollar burger was preposterous.
“What is it?” Jules said. He was staring at me.
“Nothing,” I replied.
He raised his eyebrows.
I put the menu down in front of me. “I just—with how expensive these burgers are, I hope they more than feed me.”
He continued staring at me. “Like what?”
“You know,” I said, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Like sucking my dick.”
He practically ch
oked on his water. He coughed, spat out, and covered his hand with his mouth, still shaking his head.
I smirked at him. “That wasn’t that funny,” I said.
He waved his hand in front of my face as he geared himself up to talk. “No, no,” he said. “It was just the way you said it.”
I smiled at him. I liked making him laugh, it made me feel light and airy. “How?”
“You know.” He said. “With so much disgust.”
I grinned at him. He was looking at me, his eyes shining. The more time we spent together, the less I saw the resemblance. It wasn’t like looking in a mirror at all.
My stomach growled and my thoughts were interrupted. “You’re hungry,” he said. “Let’s order.”
I looked down at menu, my eyes wide.
“Don’t worry,” he said, putting his hand on top of mine. “It’s my treat.”
I looked up at his face. It wasn’t a big deal to him, but I could have crumpled right then and there just from the idea that he would pay for my food. I wanted to insist that there was no need, but he put his hand on mine and squeezed it.
My cheeks were burning. I wanted to turn my hand upside down and hold his, intertwine our fingers, find out if they fit together like puzzle pieces. But I didn’t.
“Mason.”
My gaze darted from our hands to his face. “What?”
“I don’t want to freak you out or anything,” he said.
My eyes narrowed as I stared at him, my heart beating fast. I wondered how much he already knew. If he already knew something—if he was going to tell me—then I didn’t know how much I wanted to hear.
I didn’t know if I was prepared. “What’s going on?”
He took a deep breath. His hands were trembling on mine. “Listen,” he said as he moved his hands to his lap and wiped them on top of his jeans. “I, uh, I’ve never done this before,” he said quietly. He was fidgeting a little, and I was worried about him. “And if you say no, trust me, I’m not going to be offended.”
I stared at him as he began to stammer through his next sentence. “I, just, if you want to go to the movies with me next weekend,” he said. “Like, uh, there’s this new—”